Yes, but also an easy access to guns enables crimes by itself, and makes existing crimes deadly. That happens on top of other social problems.
A random poor teen with nothing to lose might think about robing a store, but be too scared of being confronted and never actually do it, unless he gets a gun which gives him courage. If a random night robbers get confronted with surprised home owner, they might punch him, scream, and run away, unless they have a gun in which case they’re in a shootout and everyone is dead.
That becomes moot if they aren’t motivated to commit crimes in the first place.
Even if removing guns from the US reduced crime rates, it wouldn’t be as much as doing what I described. Plus, there’s an opportunity cost, in that you only have so much political capital to spend on legislation.
How about we focus on improving the lives of 99% of the population instead of wasting political capital on trying to reclassify 50% of the population as criminals for owning guns.
Yes, but also an easy access to guns enables crimes by itself, and makes existing crimes deadly. That happens on top of other social problems.
A random poor teen with nothing to lose might think about robing a store, but be too scared of being confronted and never actually do it, unless he gets a gun which gives him courage. If a random night robbers get confronted with surprised home owner, they might punch him, scream, and run away, unless they have a gun in which case they’re in a shootout and everyone is dead.
That becomes moot if they aren’t motivated to commit crimes in the first place.
Even if removing guns from the US reduced crime rates, it wouldn’t be as much as doing what I described. Plus, there’s an opportunity cost, in that you only have so much political capital to spend on legislation.
How about we focus on improving the lives of 99% of the population instead of wasting political capital on trying to reclassify 50% of the population as criminals for owning guns.